 Hello there, lovers. I am so happy to see you again. It's been a little bit of time and I wish we were meeting under better Circumstances, but this video finna be a bit of a serious one I want to talk about some recent harassment and humiliation that I have been undergoing as a result of being a person on the internet I think it happens to all of us And I've definitely had my fair share of embarrassing moments online this one in particular really deeply bothered me because it was Manipulative and taken out of context and has caused people to throw a bunch of slurs at me And stigmatize a space that I've worked really hard to de-stigmatize and again I put a lot out there on the internet and I'm always prepared for all responses But I'm not prepared for people to twist things and change the narrative into something Ugly to try to make a joke a cheap joke at that And of course like to defame or slander me So I'm saying all this but I'm like when this first happened I came to my partner Jared in tears and I was just really Distraught about it and he was like look you just got to see the comedy behind it You got to see the irony behind it how funny it actually is if you do not know us or do not know the story I mean from first glance you're learning about this Couple who's in an open relationship and you look down to the related videos and it says how I got chlamydia You got to see how that's kind of funny You know I mean even though obviously the story doesn't match up and it's not true And if they actually took time to watch the video then they would understand that you got to just be able to make Funny yourself and be able to look at the parts of you that that is funny and ironic and the things in life That is funny and ironic and just make you laugh because life is way too short to get hung up over over things That are not even true and I would be honest with you all I really tried I tried to see it from that perspective I tried to see the light-heartedness the funniest in it, but I don't think it's funny and Jared was like come on Just like see yourself out of it. You know just picture. It's not your face Don't you see the comedy and I was honestly like no and I think maybe for good reason for what I do for a living How I think making a joke out of this you know perpetuating a stigma one and two Furthering the culture that we have which is to humiliate anyone who comes forward to talk about their sexual health Not being perfect to embarrass that person and to put them out there for everyone to point and laugh at I think the ramifications that that has on a sex-positive culture is completely negative and a massive reason as to why the STI rates continue to rise because no one feels comfortable to talk Honestly about their sexual health and when you have things like this happen you kind of get why so I Didn't find it funny. So let's just backtrack. So here are these two videos How I got chlamydia. No, it starts with our open relationship and then it goes to how I got chlamydia For anyone who's watched this video This is not news to you or watch those videos the how I got chlamydia video came first months before and that video In particular was a partnership with Trojan condoms and MTV for that summer I was doing the guide to series and they said we want you to do two videos that really come from you and talk About why you're so passionate about condom use, you know what comes to mind And there was this little voice inside of me that said tell the chlamydia story And I'd never told that story before my parents didn't know that story I told my partner. I told Jared the story at the time But it was something that was still very private for me because there was that shame and stigma associated with it Even though chlamydia is a curable sexually transmitted infections and I have zero health ramifications Nonetheless, there's still just this like red scarlet stain that you feel forever So even though I wanted to share that story because that's what I do for a living to empower people to think about their sexual health I just didn't know if I was ready to put myself on the chopping block, but something inside of me said just do it So I told the story and at that point I'd gotten chlamydia probably about like seven or eight years earlier When I was in a monogamous relationship at the start of the relationship when we decided to stop using condoms We both got tested. We were both, you know, had no Incidences or no positive results that came back. And so we decided to have sex without protection Fast-forward to eight months into our relationship. I went and got tested for free I didn't like go and do it purposefully. It was kind of like a freak thing like oh, I'll just go It's free. Why not? And then I found out that I had chlamydia and that's how I found out my monogamous relationship Wasn't monogamous. So that was that story and then fast-forward to the open relationship story that one again It wasn't this thing that I was like, I'm gonna tell the world and I want everyone to know it was Something that I had had for a year we had been in that point in an open relationship for one year's period of time and I was on the view and one of the Viewers asked a question. They said, hi, you know, I'm looking for a committed relationship But every guy that I dates kind of just wants to like leave it in this gray space. What should I do? Should I stay in the gray space with them? And I was like absolutely not There's enough people in this world that no one should be compromising how they want to be loved If you know you're only at your best self when you have that title associated with it And that gives you peace of mind and of course maybe that gives you social acceptance There's a barrage of reasons people want to be in a titled relationship If you know that's what you want keep looking until you find it me personally. I'm in an open relationship It's what I want and I'm fortunate enough to have found a partner who also wants that So I said it kind of like a throwaway It wasn't meant to be this big mic drop moment But it ended up being the focus of the rest of the segment all the hosts couldn't stop asking me questions And then I was just felt very like whoa, this is not what I anticipated that this would be So when I got home, I asked Jared who had never done YouTube before ever and never filmed himself ever I said would you feel comfortable talking about our relationship on camera? And it took him a month after I asked for him to say, you know I think that we can try and do this and again I recognized that I was opening myself up for a world of criticism and a world of judgment But I also felt this is an important story to tell and not a lot of people talk about this out loud And they should so I did and in both circumstances. I was right. I was harassed. I was called names People found me on every single platform to tell me that I was a slut or a whore or whatever else they wanted to say But I brought that on myself and in a way I had to be okay with it Why I'm not okay with this meme is that it is manipulative and it's wrong and it's simply not true I did not get chlamydia as a result of my open relationship And I understand why people would want to perpetuate that because that makes them feel comfortable That makes them say, okay, great That's exactly why I'll never do that thing because it's for evil people who want to be diseased and die early or whatever your conceptions are of open relationships And so I have worked really hard to destigmatize both of these areas separately to have them Intertwine together in a way that's chronologically incorrect and just all around false and to implicate my partner Who has did not ask for that and that's not their story and to have their face on that it bothered me and To boot it opened me up for a whole new world of harassment Because maybe 90% of you who retweeted this laughed Maybe 5% and I have to say one of the most beautiful things about this experience was seeing how many people Stood up for me and I want to show some screenshots of that because I was just That's a dream come true for me for me not to have to be the one to always fight my own battles to know that I'm standing beside an army of teammates who also are passionate about sex positivity and De-sigmatization who I don't have to be the one, you know out there by myself in the field. You're there with me So I just Where's my point? Where was my point in all of that? Five percent of you went ahead and defended me and then the other five percent of you found your way to my DMs to my emails on my YouTube and Called me every name in the book and threatened to murder me So every time that you do these things that you're just thinking it's just a joke Maybe fact-check it because nobody wants to be made a joke out of on those topics, especially Like I said, it's hard enough to have invited my the truth itself was difficult to share having to defend a lie I just didn't think I deserved that at all and you guys know how I feel about the word deserve I know it's an invalid word, but nonetheless. I just felt that was really unfair and You have to also ask yourself what kind of culture do you want to be a part of? So if we continue to do this thing where every time someone gets or talks about having a sexually transmitted infection We laugh at them. We make memes about them. You guys know from the herpes video I did it based on the usher circumstance that I just I don't subscribe to that Because what are we saying to the person who has herpes? We're saying don't say it out loud because if you do you will be made fun of you will be humiliated And you will be hung out to dry in front of everyone. So what's the other alternative? Say nothing and hopefully the other person doesn't transmit it from you We continue to push this culture forward where no one feels comfortable being honest about their sexual health because the only other Visible option is complete humiliation So every time that you press to retweet on this what message are you sending to future sexual partners of your own or of your friends? You're telling them that like under no circumstances Should you ever reveal this about yourself because once you do we can't be held accountable for what happens to you Or what people say about you because you brought it on yourself even when it comes to open relationships If the alternative to an open relationship or someone who's probably best suited in that kind of relationship But they don't feel comfortable sharing that the alternative is to hide under the guise of monogamy Cheat and to betraying someone and then try to pin it on that person rather than being able to say I think I'm just not built for that at this time But that's all let's do a little think space right now. How do we give people space to be honest in A safe way and how can we uplift a culture that encourages people who have Unconventional lifestyles or less than perfect pasts to be honest about themselves Without that bring even more embarrassment and humiliation into their lives. I'd love to know what you think The buns for good luck